SPONSORED CONTENT – The garment and textile industry is known for its high water consumption, which annually uses 79 trillion litres of water1 – enough to meet the needs of 27% of the world’s population under WHO standards. It’s estimated that fashion also contributes significantly to global industrial wastewater, posing risks to both human health and aquatic life if untreated. While leading brands are currently driving water stewardship across the textile value chain today, the future will likely see all brands and their mill partners coming under pressure to do more.
Against this backdrop, it is imperative that mills find ways to reduce water use from production to consumption, thereby saving resources, and eliminating toxins and contaminants from their production processes, making wastewater easier to treat and safely discharge.
As a partner to textile and fashion brands and mills worldwide, Archroma develops water-saving innovations to help move the industry towards a greater focus on sustainability and a better understanding of consumer aspirations.
Archroma’s DENIM HALO is a newly launched concept for denim production that is both eco-friendly and simple. This innovative approach results in a combination of an exclusive chemical with a resource saving pre-treatment and dyeing processes. This unique and disruptive approach which dyes the yarn superficially, enables significant reduction in environmental footprint of denim garment finishing processes while achieving the desired look. The result – one of the industry’s most sustainable laser friendly and easy to wash denim, that avoids the use of harmful and hazardous processes like manual hand scraping or potassium permanganate spraying.
For classic blue denim jeans, water savings of up to 40% compared to conventional dyeing and laundry finishing processes can be achieved with the aniline-free2 DENISOL® PURE INDIGO 30 LIQ dyes, while savings up to 70% are possible with the DIRESUL® SMARTDENIM BLUE pre-reduced sulfur dye for a unique blue denim look. For black denim jeans, DIRESUL® EVOLUTION BLACK uses up to 56% less water during dyeing and laundry processes. It can be used to create unique shade and wash-down effects with an overall impact reduction of up to 57% compared to standard Sulfur Black 1 liquid in synthesis3.
Beyond denim, Archroma has resource-saving innovations including the award-winning AVITERA® SE reactive dyes for cellulosic fibers and blends, ERIOPON® E3-SAVE, a next-generation auxiliary for polyester and its blends and EarthColors®, our range of bio waste-based dyes derived from natural waste products of the agriculture and herbal industries for cellulosic fibers.
These innovations not only reduce the impact on our environment but also meet the growing demand for sustainable fashion, helping the fashion and textile industry become more planet conscious.
For more on Archroma’s innovations, visit:
https://www.archroma.com/innovations
1 Source: Nature Reviews | www.nature.com/articles/s43017-020-0039-9
2 Below limits of detection according to industry standard test methods
3 Life Cycle Analysis by Ecoterrae
